A Charleston Summer
by Joannaroo
Summary: Young Wade Hamilton receives an invitation to spend the summer with his long absent stepfather...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Summons**

In the first terrible hot days of that summer after Aunt Melly had died and Uncle Rhett left, Mother and I went to see Uncle Will and Aunt Suellen at Tara. We took Ella with us. She was eight, nearly nine, but acted younger. Mother had dressed her all in black, and the ribbon around her waist of her ruffled skirt had come untied.

"Will we ever see Aunt Melwy again?" Ella asked as she clutched my hand with her small, fat one. She still had trouble with double "l" sounds, which seemed to make Mother even more irritated than usual. Ella didn't seem to notice, tripping along between Mother and I, chatting constantly to herself.

"Aunt Melly is in Heaven," I whispered, "she's gone, Ella."

Her wide eyes looked up at me with disbelief, although she had certainly been told this fact at least a hundred times.

"Gone like Bonnie?"

"Yes. Gone like Bonnie."

A brief sadness cast a shadow over Ella's round face, then her eyes lit up, as if the matter was forgotten.

"Keep her quiet, won't you Wade Hampton?" Mother snipped.

My mother had a way about her. She was hard and sure of herself, not like any of the other mothers, or even like Aunt Melly, whose loving embrace I still longed for. She always acted as if she knew something about the world that the rest of the Old Guard of Atlanta did not.

We disembarked the train at the Jonesboro depot, and Uncle Will was waiting with a beat up buggy and a horse Mother said was fit for the glue factory.

Uncle Will's smile was knowing. "We'll get us a'nern one of these days, Scarlett."

Uncle Will lifted Ella into the back of the buggy and extended a hand as I tossed in my satchel. I had hastily packed a few books and a jacket, since Mother didn't tell us how long we would be gone.

"Rhett still ain't planning on comin'?" Will addressed Mother knowingly.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at Ella, who was sucking on the hand of her porcelain doll.

"Get that out of her mouth, Wade Hampton!" she shouted, taking her seat in the buggy next to Will, and putting her head close to his ear as she began to speak about things that were clearly not meant for our hearing.

I felt left out of the conversation. But that was my way. I always felt left out. Everyone else was ahead of me, always playing at some game, it seemed, the rules of which I still had to learn. And as soon as I learned the rules, someone always seemed to change them.

But I had caught on to this much – Uncle Rhett had left for good it seemed. It was different than when he left before, with Bonnie in tow. And everyone else in Atlanta had caught on, it seemed. You could see it in their faces. Their eyes were hard and mean and their manner cocky to the point of rudeness. An older boy had knocked my books right out of my hand and made a crack about Mother the last day of school. They even whispered that word usually unspoken in polite society: divorce. Sometimes they didn't whisper. The most lowly Negro servant to the roughest white trash folks in the street who knew Mother from the store. They all acted as if they knew our business and knew what was about to happen.

But what was about to happen? Was I letting the grief of losing Aunt Melly control my emotions? Uncle Rhett had always warned me about that. "Be a man, Wade Hampton," was the last words he spoke to me before he left.

The day before we had set off for Tara, I had gathered my courage and confided in Mother. "Nobody at school will talk to me. Even Beau. Why?"

We were at the top of the staircase in the Peachtree house. Mother had fallen down those stairs just a few months prior to Aunt Melly dying and Uncle Rhett leaving. Her face looked a little white as she steadied herself on the railing.

Two of the housekeepers scurried by, whispering furtively between one another.

"You really don't know, do you?" Mother had asked me. "Rhett left me, Wade Hampton."

I felt ashamed, as if I had missed something again, something that was right before my eyes.

I burst into tears, which I think startled Mother.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

She looked slightly sympathetic, although her tone was still sharp. "You must pay more mind to things."

I studied her haughty profile as Uncle Will drove us. My mother had taught me a lot of things in my life: my way around the bustling, winding streets of the reconstructed Atlanta, how to bargain for things so I would spend less of my pocket money, how to get up early and pick cotton when the war was still on, and we had to scrounge for food and money and worse...

I would have been lonely if not for Ella. She was the only friend I had inside the house. I admired Mother and Uncle Rhett both, but at a respectful distance.

"Where are we going?" Ella yawned again.

"Tara," I said, attempting to emulate Mother's tone. I was tired of repeating myself. "Uncle Rhett's gone on a long trip so we are doing the same."

"How will he know where we are?" she asked, seeming to have a better grasp on the situation now that we were leaving the depot.

"He doesn't care," I responded.

"What about Uncle Ashley and Beau?" Ella had continued.

I pondered that question. Beau hadn't really bothered to speak to me much after Aunt Melly's funeral. A few times Uncle Ashley had stopped by our gate and asked me if Mother might go to supper with Ella and I at Aunt Pittypat's house. I had wanted to go, if only to attempt conversation with Beau. My mother said no. There would be no suppers with Ashley, she had said, and looked almost put out.

Uncle Ashley's grey eyes had gone sad when I reported back what Mother had said. I had always much admired him because Mother herself seemed to admire him so, and seemed to come alive in his presence.

Now, with Aunt Melly gone, it was as if he might as well have been the most insignificant of mill workers come to bother my mother with an inquiry.

But I admired Uncle Will, too. The house he and his wife, my mother's sister Suellen, kept at Tara was calm and orderly. And I felt safe in that house, the house my mother grew up in and loved so deeply. Yes, whatever was wrong with Mother and Uncle Rhett and the rest of the world would be made right in that house.

Aunt Suellen was waiting for us at the gate, flanked by her two oldest daughters, my cousins Susie and Lucy.

"I don't like the letters I've been getting from town, Scarlett."

"You don't have to take sides already," Mother teased, pinching Aunt Suellen's cheek.

"I don't care about sides – it's shameful, Scarlett, _shameful_."

I must have looked melancholy as Mother and Aunt Suellen disappeared into the house. Ella's doll was quickly usurped by Susie, who took off running with it. Lucy smacked Ella's bottom for good measure, then followed her sister. I stood there holding poor Ella's hand and told her not to cry. Uncle Will smiled and clapped me on the back as he lumbered up the porch, his wooden leg clip-clopping against the porch steps.

"Go inside and get something to drink, Ella. That's a good girl."

Ella shuffled sadly into the house. I moved to follow her but Uncle Will stopped me. He studied me, "What do you want out of life, Wade Hampton?"

Nobody had ever asked me that before. So I had never had to ponder it.

"I…I wouldn't mind fitting in somewhere. I don't fit in in Atlanta."

Will stared at me. "That's all?"

To me, it was everything I had ever wanted.

He laughed. "I don't reckon I fit in here. Even after all them years. Still. Reckon I make the best of it. You miss your Uncle Rhett?"

I shook my head no. I did miss Uncle Rhett, desperately, but no one should have treated my mother the way he had.

He looked at me in that shrewd way of his.

"You'd best see to Ella," he said. "I'll see if I can't get that dolly back."

He lumbered off, and I didn't say anything to Aunt Suellen when I entered the house, unwilling to bring her displeasure down on me and inadvertently cause Mother any undue stress. Suellen yelled up to the older girls that it was time for lunch, which was ready in the kitchen.

"Wade Hampton," she nodded curtly, motioning for me to take a seat next to Mother.

"Oh, by the way," Suellen said nonchalantly, "I've a message for you. Your stepfather sent it several weeks ago. I assume from the tone that he figured that your _Mother_ –" she paused on the word as if she was speaking about someone else besides the mother I had sitting to my right – "…would ship you and Ella Lorena off to us at first opportunity."

She smiled as she handed Mother the note. Mother did not smile.

"You heard from Rhett?" she said darkly.

I felt a sense of dread.

"He wanted to spend some time with his _stepson_." Again Suellen gave that awful inflection, as though I was not really Uncle Rhett's stepson at all, but some sort of imposter.

My mother made no noise as she scanned the letter with her sharp eyes.

She looked besieged, as if she were waging some sort of internal battle.

I just stared at her, awaiting her response.

She said nothing, then sat the letter down as if it was of no further importance, then proceeded to complement Aunt Suellen on the prettiness of the table.

The rest of the day went by without issue and I went to bed that night in the room that had been my Aunt Careen's. Ella had hardly cried when they said she would be sharing a room with Susie and Lucy, but I lay awake in bed in case she needed a refuge in the middle of the night.

The hall clock struck midnight and still no Ella, although I heard the slight sound of a bottle hitting a glass. I walked out into the dark hall, wearing my nightshirt. I crept down the staircase and round the foyer into the parlor that had been my grandmother's office. My mother, still dressed, was sitting primly in a stiffbacked chair.

She had a drink in her hand.

"Spying on me, Wade Hampton?" There was not the customary coolness in her tone.

"No ma'am," I replied. "I was just waiting up in case Ella…needed me."

She softened slightly.

"Uncle Rhett wants me to send you to visit him in Charleston. For the rest of the summer."

I almost tripped over the chair opposite hers.

"Me?"

She looked perturbed. "You're the only son I've got, aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am."

She eyed me, appraising me from top to bottom.

"I don't know that you're ready for what he's suggesting."

"Which is?"

"Charleston," she sounded perturbed again. "He wants me to send you to _Charleston_ for the summer. Of all the places."

"But…where do I live? With Uncle Rhett? With his mother, who?" I realized that I had not been invited to keep speaking. Mother was glowering now.

"With him, of course. He suggests that having you by his side will _keep the gossip down_. The nerve of him…" she took another sip of her drink. "That said, perhaps it isn't a horrible idea."

That was all she would say at the moment. So I didn't press her.

We said no more about the subject for the next several days, until finally Uncle Will mentioned that I would be needing a trunk and some new clothes for my trip, and it seemed that Mother had made up her mind for me. A series of telegrams were exchanged and it was decided that I would depart on Friday, and that Uncle Rhett would send someone to collect me and my things from the Charleston station.

When it was time to go, we loaded up my things and headed back to the Jonesboro depot, Mother, Ella, Uncle Will and me. Ella threw her arms around me and wailed. Mother stood straight and tall as the whitewashed columns of Tara itself. She gave me a small squeeze.

"Wade Hampton," she whispered softly. "Give Uncle Rhett my…love."

Her green eyes were unblinking. And it came to me then that she still cared for him. Loved him even.

Love for my mother filled my very bones.

I just stared at her. I would do anything for her and this was the most important task of all. Providing a link to Rhett.

Mother withdrew her hand and smiled. "It's hot. You should get on the train and get a good seat. Don't dawdle."

"Yes." I gave Ella another squeeze and drew away. Will smiled at me, and I whispered to Ella, "I'll be home the first of September. I promise."

She gave me a weak smile. "With Uncle Rhett?"

My mother must have heard because she seemed to shake with some tremor of…excitement, perhaps?

I turned, making my way to the platform. My heart was beating fast. All of my mother's hopes for her future were in my hands, and Uncle Rhett was about to come back into my life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Reckoning**

The time on the train flew by. I had found a seat in an empty compartment, which suited me just fine. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I needed the time alone to think, and to prepare myself. All of my life, I felt that I had to prepare myself for conversation with Uncle Rhett, even under the best of circumstances. And this was hardly the best of circumstances.

The train had been less than half full, and the platform at the Charleston station was all but deserted. I hurried along, worrying. Not about the crowd, or lack thereof, but about Uncle Rhett.

I didn't want to be a disappointment to him, and consequently, a disappointment to Mother. A fancy carriage was parked on the cobblestone road in front of the station. Sleek horses and a colored coachman waited. Uncle Rhett's carriage, it had to be.

Another train had pulled in in the meantime, and a fresh group of disembarking passengers swept past me as if I were a piece of dung. I thought that I caught a whiff of verbena, which always reminded me of Mother. I half expected to see her standing before me; but it was Uncle Rhett instead. I stared at him, struck dumb in his presence after being so long absent from it. He looked fit and robust, in a fine grey suit and silk cravat. He looks well, I thought to myself…guiltily, he looked as though he had been faring better away from Mother.

He greeted me with a big squeeze, then a handshake.

"How have you been, Wade?"

"Well."

He motioned to the waiting driver to see to my things, then opened the door and motioned for me to enter.

A veritable feast of tiny cakes was waiting for me, along with cold lemonade and what looked like a bottle of brandy, although I did not partake.

"Are you staying out of trouble?" Rhett inquired, adjusting himself in the seat opposite me.

"Yes sir," I responded, feeling awkward in his presence.

His grin was jovial, but I knew better.

"Come now, Wade, just because I haven't been back to Atlanta to visit you and Ella doesn't mean I haven't been keeping an eye on you."

There it was. Something was coming. I nibbled on a piece of a cake.

His eyes appraised me. "That's a handsome suit. I was afraid that we would need to make a stop at the tailor's."

"Mother had me fitted before I left Jonesboro."

"Ah, yes. I had anticipated her to dump you off on her sister."

"She didn't dump us. She was there as well."

I felt my jaw tense, which seemed to amuse Uncle Rhett.

"You've had a haircut, too. And even started to shave I see." He stuck two fingers on the side of my cheek. "I thought I might have been the one to show you how."

"Uncle Will did," I retorted back, growing weary of the inspection. "Why did you ask me to come, Uncle Rhett?"

He laughed mightily. "Straight to the point, aren't you? I knew you had to have a little Scarlett in you. As for poor Ella…she's more than a little touched."

"She is not. She's slower, that's all. But she's smart and sweet and doesn't cause any trouble."

His eyes met mine. "I'm sorry, son. I love Ella very dearly, and that was wrong for me to say about her."

"I'm not your son," I retorted, feeling newly entitled to be blunt. "You haven't seen me in almost a year. Why did you ask me to come?"

He leaned back in the seat, shrugging his shoulders. "I simply wanted to see you. Spend some time with you. Make sure that you have the support you need. I know better than most that people can be cruel at your age."

It was my turn to shrug. "I'm doing fine."

He raised a dark eyebrow. "Not as I hear it."

"People talk." I pondered his words. "But…how? You haven't been there."

"But as I mentioned, I keep informed."

"They talk because you left."

"Well," he drummed his finger on his chin. "…truthfully, young Wade, they talk because your mother makes poor decisions."

"Which caused you to leave?" I pressed him.

"It had a part in it. I also needed some time alone. I thought, actually, you would benefit from the same. Time spent away from your mother, I mean."

"I don't have a problem with Mother."

"I don't expect you to feel free enough to express it, but she has been verbally and emotionally abusive to you as long as I can remember."

"She also never abandoned us, no matter how bad things got."

That shut him up, albeit briefly.

"Very well," he sighed, "I am gratified that you're so charitable toward your mother. I shall endeavor to keep my criticism of her parenting to a minimum while you are here. If you are so happy with her, and she with you, why ever did she agree to allow you to spend the summer with me?"

My mouth was dry. Mother's last words to me had been to give him her _love_. He deserved none of that love.

"I suppose that we should count ourselves fortunate that she was inclined for you to come. Did she return with Ella to Atlanta?"

How did he know Mother wasn't still at Tara?

"Ella's not in Atlanta," I mumbled, seeing his game.

"Ah. At Tara, I take it?"

I nodded.

"Let me see now," he reflected, "your mother now has a child free summer. And a free Ashley Wilkes…"

I sank back in my seat, beaten. I liked to keep my ears above the fray. That rumor had gone around school several years back. Nobody spoke to me directly about it, and Aunt Melly had called it a load of tommyrot.

I felt trapped, powerless to defend Mother but feeling obliged to her to continue to play my part in this charade of a visit, wherever it led me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The Art of Connection**

"We're here," Rhett said.

We had pulled up to the two-story white brick house on the cobblestoned street called The Battery. Once inside the foyer I just stood, listening, waiting for instruction.

From the street came sounds of horses clip-clopping by, the wheels of the fancy carriages brushing against the stately old stones. But the house itself seemed sealed off from all that. The quiet chime of a grandfather clock in the parlor welcomed me. My eyes took in the old fashioned wainscoted walls and the graceful staircase. A small table with a white marble top. A long dining table with straight backed cherry chairs. The carpet was Oriental in nature, which contrasted slightly with the graceful lines of the near white draperies. A silver firescreen shone in front of the ornate marble fireplace.

Something about the lines around Rhett's mouth seemed to be softening as he surveyed along with me.

"Nothing ever changes in my absence," he said offhandedly. "Nothing except for me."

"That's how Mother feels about Tara," I retorted, the spell of silence temporarily broken.

He seemed to ignore me. "This is my mother's house."

I felt sick to my stomach. "Does your mother know that you and Mother are…that you left us?"

His face seemed to darken. "Certainly not. Which is another reason I have decided to bring you here, do you understand?"

So Uncle Rhett had an ulterior motive for asking me to Charleston. A part of my heart unconsciously sank at that, although I really hadn't believed that he had actually wanted to see me. I had hoped…

I would have to do better. Heed his words. _Be a man, Wade Hampton._

I would have to get to a place in my life when words could no longer hurt me.

But for now, my only mission was to get through the social expectations without inadvertently revealing his secret. I could not allow my head to get muddled.

It was then that I heard a voice, coming from an upstairs bedroom.

"Rhett? Is that you? Is he here?"

And there she was, at the top of the stairs. Her long coppery hair fell to the middle of her back, and I thought dumbly that it was the same color as the copper candlesticks.

Rhett grinned as she took the stairs two at a time before jumping into his waiting arms.

"Wade Hampton," he turned his head toward me. "Meet my sister, Rosemary."

She smiled sweetly at me and inquired about my trip.

I held back, hesitating to seem too forward. I knew that Charleston people were rigid, and known for holding tight to social mores. I wanted do Mother a credit, so I bowed slightly.

She seemed pleased, and kissed my cheek.

"I'm calling for some tea for Mother," she said to Rhett. "If you're not too terribly tired from your journey, I had hoped that you and Wade might join us. Mother and her circle are terribly fond of young voices."

If Rhett was surprised or put off by the request, he didn't express it at all.

"We would be delighted," he said on my behalf.

His mother and two other elderly ladies were already in the drawing room doing needlework, along with another lady whose age was probably in between his sister's and Mother's.

"The boy will be hungry," Mrs. Butler, a tiny woman with wispy white hair the color of starched linen proclaimed loudly as Uncle Rhett bent down to kiss her.

"Wade would be happy to read for you while you are about your tasks, ladies," he said with the sweetness of a silver tongued fox.

I blanched under the appraisal of the entire room.

"You read well, young man?" one of the older ladies wheezed.

"Yes ma'am," I managed.

Now Mrs. Butler furrowed her brow, seeming to pick her words carefully. "You've had schooling, of course. Does the boy have a tutor, Rhett?"

Rhett shook his head. "He goes to the public school in Atlanta, although his mother and I have discussed other options lately."

"Latin?"

"No Latin," I acknowledged, which seemed to embarrass Uncle Rhett. "But I have a good head for figures."

That sent the room into giggles. "Figures?" Mrs. Butler cackled. "The boy might yet have a career as a shopkeep."

It was Miss Rosemary who came to my rescue. "I believe that Wade's mother does manage a shop. With Rhett's help, of course. What a unique diversion that must be for a young man."

I nodded, wanting to express my pride in Mother's store but confident that such was not appropriate employment for a gentleman's wife. And Uncle Rhett was playing the part of a southern gentleman with to such great affect.

Miss Rosemary smiled and continued to stitch. "We are all born to education. Why, even we ladies are now allowed schooling. I wonder why the men are allowed their diversions and women are not? Or at the least, they are discouraged from such. It's good of you, Rhett, to allow Scarlett to have such independence. I think that's something to be much admired, not sneered at."

Mrs. Butler shook her head, "You do run on, Rosemary, dear. Scarlett is not ordinary, in that sense. But would my son ever have chosen an ordinary woman…? I think not."

Uncle Rhett's jaw seemed to flinch at that, but he said nothing, continuing to play his part to perfection.

The ladies continued to talk in whispers amongst themselves, and I was tasked with reading aloud the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.

At last, Uncle Rhett said that it was time to get me settled into my quarters and allow me to change for dinner.

As soon as we were out of earshot, I whispered furtively. "I only brought two suits."

"We'll get more."

"Why do you change for dinner?"

"Because it's Charleston and that is how it's done."

"Since when do you do what everybody else does?" I challenged him, which earned me a dirty look.

"Because I am attempting to give you some chance, however miniscule, of success in life."

He sounded bitter.

"Like you?" I said dismally.

"Would you have preferred for me to have left you at Tara to learn a trade from the peglegged Cracker?"

"Uncle Will is not a Cracker!" I huffed.

"He certainly is, young man, and your Mother, for all her Robillard connections is nothing more than imitation gentry."

I was so mad I was shaking. "I'm sorry my family is nothing more than Crackers and white trash."

He stared down at me, as if he was remembering something for the first time. "You have the Hamilton side, at least. Time to channel it, son."

"I didn't even know my father."

He looked at me gravely, and I turned red.

"But you knew his sister, and that surely counts for something."

He left me at the door to the room he said was mine for the summer. It was small but comfortable. I couldn't see the river, but he said I would be up early, since the call of the high whistle roused the dock workers in the morning.

I tried to steady myself, thinking about my mother and all her poise. She trusted me, needed me to succeed among these people for her. I had no right feeling sorry for myself over Uncle Rhett's harsh words.

All my life I had longed to open my heart to Mother. She was so bristly on any given day, but on certain occasions she would flash me a sweet smile and say _that's mighty good, Wade Hampton_. I wanted to tell her that I adored her, but I always held back the words, shamed by my inadequacies, sorry that Ella and I were the children she had left, not our sister Bonnie. If Bonnie had lived, Uncle Rhett would never have left.

It was Miss Rosemary who knocked on my door at half past five and offered to walk with me to the dinner table. She was wearing a blue dress of watered silk and her hair was pinned up.

"Where did you go to school, Miss Butler?" I attempted to make appropriate conversation as she offered me her arm.

"I didn't," she seemed to smirk. "My father allowed me the most basic of a ladies' education but sadly, the war started, so I wasn't able to complete much past the making of bandages, and reading psalms to the wounded men…not to complain, of course…other ladies my age were subjected to the same fate. The men our age were all killed in action of course. Your mother was smart to marry your father before he left, else you wouldn't have been here."

I pondered that concept, realizing not only that Miss Rosemary was very close to Mother's age, but that I was as well. She had been barely seventeen when I was born.

She spoke without bitterness and smiled, "But I shall never marry, young Wade. I am resigned to it and truthfully, am glad for it."

"You may yet," I offered earnestly, thinking any man alive would be fortunate to call her his wife.

"You're kind, but it isn't to be," she smiled sweetly. "And now, I can rejoice in spoiling my nephew who I have only met, and my niece… I long to meet little Ella, how I would adore to hug another little girl. I adored Bonnie, you know, when Rhett brought her here, I just…"

My face must have fallen, because she stopped speaking abruptly.

"I am so, so sorry, Wade. I know you must grieve for the little darling terribly. Rhett boasts about what a loving, protective brother you are to your sister. It reminds him very much of how he protected me. But Wade, dearest, I hope that we can be friends…"

Her brown eyes were wide and hopeful, and for a split second, she reminded me of Bonnie.

I nodded and she seemed gratified.

"Now that we are friends, perhaps you can tell me something."

I tensed.

"How are my brother and your mother doing? The pain of losing Bonnie, I'm sure is almost unbearable. But my brother seems different, strange. I can't put my finger on it. I wanted to set my mind and my mother's at ease, because we've heard some terrible talk from our friends in Atlanta."

She looked at me with grave seriousness. I remembered my promise to Uncle Rhett.

"We are well, Miss Rosemary. Nothing is amiss with us."

She nodded, seemingly accepting my story.

Relief flooded my veins.

"You must call me Aunt Rosemary, Wade. We are family, after all."

I nodded again.

"Thank you for reassuring me that there is no great trouble. Mother and I have thought it through at great length, and we have decided to invite your Mother and sister for our family sailing trip down the Ashley River. We won't discuss the matter with Rhett, and I am confident you won't say anything to him either."

She continued to muse, "I have to admit, I was glad of the idea of you and he spending time on the boat together, but there will be plenty of time for that in the next two weeks. What he and Scarlett need is an opportunity to be together, away from the home and pain and memories."

She looked for my approval, and her large brown eyes met mine.

"I want my brother to be happy, and he's terribly desolate. But I'm so very glad you're here, dear. And I am so grateful that you've confirmed that we had nothing to fear with that div—I mean, separation talk."

"Yes ma'am," I lied. I had to lie, much as I hated to do it to her.

"Open the windows, Honore," she said to a waiting maid as we made our way to the bottom of the staircase. "I'll be glad for the breeze. It'll make using the dining room pleasant." She turned back to me. "We normally eat in the parlor or our rooms, since it's just Mother and I here. I hope the cooking is to your liking."

I pondered and fretted internally as she ushered me to my seat.

I owed Uncle Rhett something, but I wasn't yet sure if I wanted to divulge the conversation with Miss Rosemary to him. I would see how the next few days played out. I was still smarting from his remarks about Mother and Uncle Will and the rest of my family.

He deserved whatever shame he brought on himself if Mother accepted the invitation and he sent her away. But at what cost to Mother?

Uncle Rhett sat at the head of the table and seemed to glow with pride at the meal, at his Mother's table. He was frankly beaming. I looked around, and thought that his gaze seemed to have fallen on me.

"Welcome to Charleston, Wade," he raised his glass.

I raised mine in return, helplessly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Setting Into Motion**

When you're young, the world can still look good to you, despite all of the turmoil around it, my Aunt Melly had observed to Mother about Beau and I once when we were young. We had been playing King of the Hill at Tara while the adults around us toiled in the cotton field. My mother had scoffed back, "They'd best grow up fast. You lie to yourself enough, you start to believe your own lies, Melly."

I wondered then if that was what had happened to her. Had she lied to herself when she married my father? Or Mr. Kennedy? Or Uncle Rhett, for that matter?

The evening was so nice that as soon as dinner was finished, Uncle Rhett asked if I wanted to accompany him for a walk by the river.

In spite of myself, as soon as we left the house, I found my spirits lifting. A breeze was coming off the water and the air felt like silk. You could almost drink it. The Battery was peaceful, its cobblestones shining clean. There was a big park at the end of the lane, and the pickaninny children were sitting on the grass and the whole picture was framed by an orange haze from the setting sun.

Other people of better social standing were strolling around, some with young children.

I missed Ella, and I wondered if Uncle Rhett was missing Bonnie.

"I'm very happy to have you here, Wade," he said softly.

Breathing in, I calmed myself, choosing to believe the lie.

I didn't say anything to him about Miss Rosemary's plan to bring my mother to the…what had she called it…the family sailing trip?

I would not break the peace in the place. They had all been kind to me, Uncle Rhett included.

And that was how the next few days went. My job was to read to the older ladies during the day for an hour or two while they congregated in the parlor. I served the guests tea or lemonade and changed into my second suit for dinner and helped Miss Rosemary to her seat. Uncle Rhett took me to town to buy another new suit, which seemed to make the one Mother bought me in Jonesboro look downright ratty.

And Uncle Rhett seemed friendly to everyone in town. Unlike Atlanta, where he associated with all manner of folks, not just those of quality, he seemed here to move in a different circle. I heard him say to the tailor that he would be taking his business to New York before the year was out. I wondered what that would mean for me, and for Mother. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he might take me with him to New York. And then I remembered Mother and Ella and felt sick to my stomach.

 _Be a man, Wade Hampton_ … Well, what sort of a man would contemplate leaving his women-kin?

The odd moment passed and we collected the new suit and cotton shirts and the finest looking velvet waistcoat I had ever seen, let alone worn, and Uncle Rhett offered me a trip to sweetshop, which sounded nice. We took a detour to McCrady's Tavern instead, where Uncle Rhett said that George Washington had once eaten a thirty course meal.

He ordered a whiskey for himself, then ordered a cider for me, which I probably drank too fast. It made me giddy, and he ordered another, which he had to help me finish.

I felt a little sick, but I didn't care. Men sat in taverns and drank beer or whiskey with their fathers. I wouldn't make myself unworthy of the place I had found with him, however tenuous it was.

Miss Rosemary was waiting for us in the solar, serene and smiling. She seemed to know that we had stopped at the tavern, or perhaps she saw that I was starting to sway from the cider, and said that it was time for lunch, which was ready in the kitchen.

"Take it out to the back garden where there's a nice breeze," she said. "If it's not too hot… Oh and Rhett, darling, I've a message for you. Scarlett sent word around earlier. She and Ella will be here early tomorrow morning."

She smiled as she handed him a folded telegram.

He did not smile.

"Scarlett has…" he cleared his throat. "…not been in touch with me."

His eyes darted over to me, and he looked awfully mad.

Rosemary smiled, "This is all Mother and my doing, I'm afraid. I invited her to join us for the family reunion and the sailing excursion next weekend, and she wanted to come straightaway. I know that Scarlett must be anxious to see how Wade has been faring. The first time she's been separated from him, I gather."

I felt a sense of dread.

Uncle Rhett stood there, looking down at me.

I was in trouble; I could sense it. Maybe not as much as Miss Rosemary, who positively beamed.

There was dead coldness in his voice. "How very nice of you."

In the morning I took breakfast at the large dining room table, although Mrs. Butler was still asleep and Uncle Rhett was out riding, according to Miss Rosemary, who was overseeing the preparations for Mother's arrival.

I sat there, worrying. Surely Uncle Rhett would be kind to Mother, at least in front of his own Mother and sister.

And surely Mother would be on her best behavior. For all of her quirks, she was a lady underneath her tough exterior.

"I was just in the kitchen," Miss Rosemary breezed by me, setting a vase with fresh flowers in the center of the table. Cookie has stuffed salmon and new potatoes in the oven for lunch. They smell divine. I hope they are to Scarlett's liking."

She smiled at me. "I feel as nervous as a school girl. You'd think your mother is coming to pass judgment on me."

She was wearing a gown the color of a ripe Georgia peach with a square neck that Mother would have only worn in her bedroom, never to greet guests.

Just then, I heard a rap from the foyer, and Miss Rosemary clapped her hands with excitement and started toward the door before the butler had a chance to answer it.

My mother's black hair was shining in the morning sunlight, and she was wearing an ivory colored silk dress with a high, proper neckline that made Miss Rosemary look positively scandalous by comparison.

Our eyes met immediately, although Miss Rosemary had practically pounced on her in a hurried introduction, which included a warm hug.

Ella ran straight past Miss Rosemary, her skirt flying, to hug me.

Mother looked worried and a little lost.

"You must be tired, Scarlett," Rosemary took her arm gently. "Ella, dear, I am your Auntie Rosemary. You must come give me a kiss."

Ella looked up at Mother for permission, then gingerly walked up to Rosemary and gave her the tiniest of pecks on the cheek.

"Come, join me in the parlor and I'll call for tea," Rosemary continued to beam. "Mother isn't up yet, but she should be soon. Rhett is out riding, and he might be gone for half the day."

Mother's face looked a little white at the mention of his name, but she looked grateful at the prospect of tea.

"Speak for yourself, dear sister," his voice was quiet.

We all turned with a start, toward the front doorway, which Rosemary had neglected to close behind Mother and Ella.

I felt the blood pounding to my cheeks as I watched a flurry of emotions appear on Mother's face.

Rhett just stood there on the doorstep, looking besieged. He had clearly ridden hard and his chest was heaving with exertion. His face was covered in sweat.

I just stared.

Every movement he made seemed to last an eternity. Ella got up from her chair, but did not run to him, as he seemed to expect her to.

Rosemary seemed to notice something was amiss, and she grabbed Ella's shoulders and moved to steer her toward the kitchen.

"How would you like something to eat, darling? Be a good girl and come with me."

She closed the door to the hallway behind them, leaving me behind with Mother. I hadn't been dismissed, so perhaps I was invited to stay.

I said nothing, just standing behind the chair Rosemary had vacated.

"I wonder, why you felt that you had the right to come here?" His voice was harsh, but measured.

I recognized the tone. It was the voice he used when he was angriest. He never yelled or screamed. Just awful, harsh and uncaring.

Always, it had sent Ella to tears. Me too, more than I wanted to admit.

Not Mother. Mother wouldn't allow anyone to make her cry.

"I came because I was invited," she said.

"Ah, yes. My sister invited you out of courtesy, and you felt the need to accept. Despite my explicit wishes, no, command, my pet – that you leave me to my business. In return, I allowed you full access to the house, my funds, anything you might wish."

She interrupted him. "It would have been rude not to accept. I would never have dreamt of coming if you hadn't had Wade Hampton here already."

At the mention of my name, my ears began to buzz with heat, and his attention turned to me, as if he had forgotten I was there.

"You had no right to come here, Scarlett."

"No right?" she smiled that coquettish smile, "I am your wife, and I am Wade's mother. It is customary to accept an invitation that is offered, particularly, to a family gathering. Now Wade, darling, would you ask Rosemary if she would be kind enough to show me to Rhett's bedroom?"

That brought his anger to the surface. He stared at Mother as if he would have hit her if he could have.

"You dare – " he started, but she cut him off.

"Oh Rhett, please, don't let's start talking like that now. Please."

He shook a warning finger at her. "You will stay in your own quarters. You will be the pinnacle of politeness but you are not to attempt to befriend my sister and Mother, you will say nothing of the circumstances between us and you damned sure will remove yourself from this house after the events of next weekend are concluded. Do I make myself clear?"

"Abundantly," she said, with more than a little sarcasm. "So I am to be cold and ungracious to my mother by marriage and sister-in-law?"

He got red in the face and his hand started to shake. "That unfortunate familiarity exists – for now – but this is not your home, Scarlett. These are not your people. You will not make them family to you. You are my wife in name, but no more!"

Silence in the room. Terrible silence.

"Don't speak to Mother like that, Uncle Rhett." It was all I could think to say.

I half expected him to holler at me. Or Mother, alternatively, for interrupting.

"I'm speaking the truth, Wade Hampton, only your mother doesn't wish to hear it."

"I hear you fine, Rhett," Mother shook her head. "I only thought that when you brought Wade up here, to introduce him to your family, you might…"

"Do you know what I have had to do here to regain my respect, Scarlett? Have you any idea?"

"Well, you brought Wade to attempt to paint yourself a loving father, I suppose –"

His eyes narrowed. "I am not his father."

I just stared at him. It felt like he punched me to the gut.

He left the room, bowing slightly before closing the door behind him.

I must have looked stricken enough to frighten the dead.

Mother patted my shoulder. "It's alright, Wade Hampton."

I hoped beyond hope that Rosemary hadn't heard the commotion from the kitchen, nor Ella or any of the servants. What would they think if they had? What would become of Uncle Rhett's carefully cultivated respect?

I shouldn't care, I thought to myself. He doesn't care about me. I'm no son to him just as Mother is no wife to him. But I must admit that that realization caused a certain wrenching in my heart.


End file.
